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Refusenik [US - IVAW] - Mateo Rebecchi

August 22, 2008

This article, by Carol Smith, was originally published in the Seattle Post Intelligencer, August 6, 208

A group of local veterans hopes to launch a coffeehouse near Fort Lewis where soldiers – both active-duty and out of the military – could brew both good java and good company.
The coffeehouse would be a safe place, off base, where GIs and their families could go for support, information about their rights and a chance to express what's going on in their lives, said Mateo Rebecchi, 24, a student at Seattle Central Community College and member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, one of the coffeehouse backers.
"We're trying to reach out to soldiers who feel they have nowhere to go," he said.
The coffeehouse would be the third such effort around the country, said Molly Gibbs, a community organizer who has worked with Veterans for Peace and other Seattle advocacy groups.
Rising concerns about the effect of longer deployments, the increase in post-deployment suicide rates, sexual assaults in the military, PTSD and employment have created a need for a place where people can go to share experiences and find resources to cope, she said.
These kinds of coffeehouses have a time-honored tradition in the post-Vietnam era, said Gibbs, whose first job in the mental health field was with Vietnam vets, every one of whom came back "indelibly shaped" by that experience. Something one of them told her has stayed with her and kept her motivated to help veterans connect.
"I had a friend who was a medic in Vietnam," she said. "He told me, 'I left who I was over there – I never came back.' "
The coffeehouse, which has yet to be named, is still in the fundraising stages, said Rebecchi, who estimated $30,000 is needed to launch and operate the first year. The group is hoping to nab space in an abandoned coin-operated laundry near the base. The cafe also would serve up music, movies, poetry slams, lectures and access to legal help.
Rebecchi said one of the main goals of the coffeehouse is to inform soldiers and veterans of their rights and to encourage them to speak their minds, even if they don't agree with official military policy.
One of the best things the community can do for soldiers, and soldiers can do for each other, is to listen to each other's stories, Gibbs said. Time and again, she's heard from veterans and active-duty military that what they needed most when they got back from a deployment was a chance to share what happened to them and have it be heard in a nonjudgmental way.
Rebecchi hopes the climate of the coffeehouse will encourage more military members – both active duty and not – to consider ways to end the war in Iraq.
Rebecchi served a four-year tour in the Persian Gulf with the Coast Guard before being honorably discharged. He said he began questioning the war effort while he was deployed.
"Ultimately, what's going to stop it is the GIs standing up and saying, 'We're not going to fight anymore,' " he said.
The coffeehouse effort, which also has been endorsed by Seattle Veterans for Peace, Citizen Soldier, Sound Nonviolent Opponents of War, Fellowship of Reconciliation and Physicians for Social Responsibility, is holding a fundraiser at the Richard Hugo House in Seattle on Aug. 25 from 7 to 9 p.m., featuring Tod Ensign, director of Citizen Soldier and co-founder of the Different Drummer Internet Cafe near Fort Drum in upstate New York.

July 12, 2008

This article, by Mark Paxton, was first published in The Pinnacle, July 3, 2008

It wasn't the blue-black starkness of Antarctica that left the most indelible impression upon Mateo Rebecchi during his four-year hitch with the United States Coast Guard.
It was the way people around the world reacted when they understood he was part of the U.S. military.
"Leading up to the [Iraq] war, I didn't realize how many people around the world were protesting it," Rebecchi said last week. "There was a lot of protest internationally - in Japan, a lot of places in Europe too. A lot of people had a magnifying glass on U.S. policy in Iraq. They were very critical of U.S. policy in other countries."
Rebecchi grew up in Hollister, the son of two local teachers. He graduated from San Benito High in 2001. After attending a community college in San Diego for a while the Coast Guard began looking pretty good.
There were talks with the recruiting officer, of course. But more important was the chance to make a contribution, something his parents, Margaret and Larry Rebecchi, instilled in each of their three children.
"One of the reasons for joining the Coast Guard is that I wanted to serve my country," Rebecchi said. "I didn't want to fight in Iraq. I'd hoped to protect our coast instead of working on ships and sending them overseas to fight this war."
Still he is grateful for the experience.
Rebecchi trained as an electrician's mate in Virginia before being posted to an icebreaker home ported in Seattle. From there, his travels spanned the globe - Asia, Antarctica and Europe.
"It was good times," he said. "Traveling around the world was a great experience. It was nice to be away. I met a lot of people and got perspectives of how hard it is to live in other countries."
Relaxing in the garden of the family home, Rebecchi conveys confidence beyond his 24 years. He is articulate and handsome enough to get a second look from any woman near his age.
In short, he is any recruiter's worst nightmare.
Rebecchi and two other local veterans spoke to some 50 local residents at St. Benedict's Catholic Church last Friday. They talked about their experiences and those of their comrades in arms. All are members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (www.ivaw.org). Jeff Patterson registered as a conscientious objector during his service as a nuclear technician in the first Gulf War. George Sanchez knows his life was saved by a thin layer wrapped around the bottom and sides of his Humvee, flimsy armor that saved his life when his convoy came under attack in Iraq.
Today Rebecchi is a student, attending community college in Seattle. But, like other members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, he's been on the road as well.
"We went to Washington, D.C., in April," he said. "There were over 200 vets attending the event. We testified to Congress. Some of the accounts of war crimes and atrocities were kind of blacked out by corporate media."
But in Seattle, the group promoted its own event and more than 800 people showed up on May 31. "We just wanted the public to have access to our accounts and eyewitness testimonies," he said.
The group is also active around Fort Lewis, an enormous military reservation near Tacoma, Wash., south of Seattle.
"We're trying to do different things in the area," he said. "We encourage active duty military to come out against the war."
It is Rebecchi's sense of duty that propelled him into the anti-war movement.
"I've always wanted, when I got out, to speak out for vets," Rebecchi said. "I feel that, as someone who served in the military not actually having gone [to war] myself but who's seen people who maybe aren't able to speak out, perhaps because of their medical status, that I have something to say."
"I hope I can help inspire people in communities, so people can come together and try to bring an end to this war. If we can get enough people, eventually they can't just turn a blind eye."
About their Hollister engagement last Friday, Rebecchi said the three veterans share a common dream.
"I hope what we can do is start a movement in Hollister," he said. "Conservative or not, over 70 percent of the people in this country don't feel good about this war."
Hollister already is home to an anti-war movement. Hollister in Black members have been holding a silent weekly vigil on corners around town since 2002.
Mary Zanger has been a regular participant, and she attended the presentation last Friday.
"I've been thinking a lot about them," she said this week. "They were sincere and honest. They've found themselves. I don't even think they had any prepared notes."
Far from being an isolationist, Rebecchi said his experience in learning how the rest of the world greets U.S. foreign policy spawned a new dream.
"I'd like the U.S. eventually to be seen in a peaceful role … helping other nations be the best they can be."
It seems like more than a hollow hope. Rebecchi hopes to eventually transfer to a university to study international relations. A career as a diplomat, where he can help facilitate that dream, is the ultimate goal.

June 27, 2008

In a clear change of strategy to energise public anti-war sentiment, Iraq veterans led a determined demonstration of hundreds through the streets of downtown Seattle last Saturday, following regional Winter Soldier hearings at the Seattle Town Hall.
A larger Winter Soldier event occurred at the National Labour College in Silver Spring, Maryland from Mar. 13 to Mar. 16 earlier this year. But the strategy for those hearings appeared to be based on keeping the event from being directly affiliated with any demonstrations or anti-war activities in an attempt to reach a broader audience. Those hearings were closed to the public, and no demonstrations or other overtly public actions were tied to the event.
This tactic was apparently meant to draw in more national mainstream media coverage of the event, which, with few exceptions, did not materialise.
Chanan Suarez Diaz, the Seattle Chapter president of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), which organised last weekend's event, had told IPS that his chapter, along with others in the northwest region, intended to make a major effort to draw the public into both the testimonials and taking action afterwards.
The Seattle regional Winter Soldier event was open to the public.
A late April poll conducted by CNN/Opinion Research Corp. found that nearly three-quarters (68 percent) of respondents opposed the Iraq war. The strategy of the regional IVAW groups is clearly meant to capitalise on the growing opposition to the occupation of Iraq among the U.S. public.
Christopher Diggins, a psychotherapist who attended the demonstration, reflected the feelings of many -- that this strategy is important.
'This tactic is better because you have to get the community involved,' Diggins told IPS. 'You have to have community awareness and support.'
'I want to show my solidarity for vets who are against the war, because it is the only way this war is going to stop,' he added. 'It's hard to have the war if nobody is going to fight.'
Diggins founded the Soldiers Project Northwest in Washington State (www.soldiersproject.org). The project is a group of therapists that volunteer to work one hour per week each with soldiers and their families who need assistance.
Saturday's event found veterans leaving their testimony to lead a crowd directly onto the streets to begin a demonstration. Protestors chanting 'U.S. out of the Middle East, No Justice, No Peace,' and carrying signs such as 'You Can't Be All You Can Be If You're Dead!' stopped traffic for nearly an hour.
'I'm here to support the war resisters,' Theresa Mosqueda, a Seattle resident who works on health policy advocacy for children and marched behind members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), told IPS, 'They are the core part of ending this war. This is an illegal and immoral war, and the resisters have the power to stop it.'
At least one Iraq war veteran joined IVAW as a result of attending the hearings last weekend.
Several of the vets urged onlookers to join the march, and many did as the demonstration passed by Seattle's bustling Pike Place Market.
Nick Spring, a student from Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington, was one of the marchers. 'I came down today because it's a great way to be informed by the vets, support GI resistance, and try to end the war,' Spring told IPS.
The regional winter soldier hearings were a smaller event, and there was no national mainstream media coverage. However, there was heavy local and alternative media coverage. At least one of the major Seattle television stations covered the testimonials, as well as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the largest paper in the region.
The group Just Foreign Policy estimates that over 1.2 million Iraqis have died since the U.S.-led invasion began in March 2003. The Opinion Business Research group in Britain estimates the same number.
According to the U.S. Department of Defence, at least 4,086 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq.
Many of the demonstrators were vets themselves who had just given testimony about their time in Iraq. They included Josh Simpson, Sergio Kochergin, Seth Manzel, Mateo Rebecchi, Jan Critchfield, Doug Connor, and many others.
Children numbered among the demonstrators as well. Nine-year-old Wes Cunningham, accompanied by his father, was asked by IPS why he was in attendance.
'It's a cool march,' he said. 'And I think it's bad to kill other human beings.'
IVAW now boasts over 1,200 members, a 50 percent increase since the March Winter Soldier hearings in Maryland. The fastest growing segment of their membership is active-duty soldiers.